


How Secretly You've Come

by mywholecry



Category: Amanda Palmer (Musician), Bandom, Neil Gaiman - Fandom
Genre: Dating, F/M, Falling In Love, I feel creepy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-30
Updated: 2011-11-30
Packaged: 2017-10-26 17:46:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/286151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mywholecry/pseuds/mywholecry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They tell the world that they're dating, which should probably be some kind of grand romantic gesture, but nobody's surprised. He makes Amanda hold his hand in public, and she pulls him into corners and kisses him with teeth, and he's having trouble meeting deadlines.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Secretly You've Come

**Author's Note:**

> I have a differing opinion of Amanda Palmer now then I did when I wrote this, but I still kind of like it. This was written for anon_lovefest a long time ago, and then I locked it after I got some negative AFP fan attention after writing a post about ableism and Evelyn Evelyn.
> 
> So. Here's this.

It takes him awhile after meeting her to figure out that Amanda reminds him of Death. He can look back over the old comics in ways he never has before and see his words coming out of a smart, dark mouth, and wonder how she hasn't been in his life forever, how this isn't _her_. He's created whole worlds in his head, on paper, but when he looks at Amanda, eyebrows drawn in thin and arching, he can't help but think about the mythology he has known from childhood, about goddesses with loud laughs and sweet smiles.

*

The photo shoots for the album and the book go perfectly–Amanda’s an actress at heart, always will be, and Neil likes to watch her smile and glare and play dead–and they crawl up onto the roof after they’ve finished all they need to and take pictures together. Amanda’s pulled off her dress and left it lying on the floor downstairs, and her legs are long and pale under her shift as she stretches them out in front of her.

There’s a patch of unshaved hair above her knee, and she leans their arms together, shifting as close as she can to keep warm while the flash goes off in front of them once, twice, and someone reminds Neil that he should probably look at the camera.

“I’m distracting,” Amanda offers, and she catches him in the stomach with her elbow, lightly. When he looks at the camera, there’s a crooked smile on his face, and Amanda has her head angled towards him.

*

He asks Tori if she's listen to the demos he sent her from _Who Killed Amanda Palmer_ , during one of their calls, and she says, "no less than five times."

"She's the new me. All the bloggers say so," Tori says, and he can hear her smiling through the telephone, pleased.

"Every girl with a solo project and a piano is the new you," he says.

"But Amanda's fucking genuine."

He pauses for a beat, tightening his grip on his cellphone as he sits down on his doorstep, watches his dog run towards the woods.

"Yes," he murmurs, "yes, she is."

"Oh, my," Tori says, "I've heard that voice before. Are you having _relations_ with this young Ms. Palmer of yours? "

"No," he says, and, "but I maybe want to be," and, softly, "I never told you anything, woman."

He pulls a face while she tries not to laugh at him.

*

Neil's backstage at the show when she first sings "I Google You", voice rising every time she throws a glance over her shoulder to where he's standing, smiling at her while the crowd loses it. When the concert's over, after a three song finale, she runs backstage and jumps at him, arms around his neck and a leg thrown behind his knees when she kisses him on the mouth. He puts a hand on the small of her back to keep her from falling, but she pulls away and moves to grab Brian.

He watches her try to talk to everyone at once, laughing with smeared lipstick and sweaty curls covering her forehead, and tries to tell himself that she's just excited, that she’s kissing everyone, that she’s Amanda _fucking_ Palmer, and isn’t that just the problem?

*

Neil might go out of his way to make it to the next concert, four hours in the car, but Amanda doesn’t mention it, just holes up with him in her dressing room with her iPod speakers turned up high on Tchaikovsky. She doesn’t talk while she sits on her knees in the vanity chair, leans forward on her elbows while she draws in eyebrows with fine, jagged black lines. There’s something way too intimate about this moment, but he can’t help but watch, even when their eyes meet in the mirror and she stares back.

*

"I think about you a lot," Amanda says, when she's taken up on his offer of making her dinner one night, sitting on the counter with her legs crossed while he washes the dishes. He looks up at her, and she looks back passively, not offering him anything else.

"That's cryptic," he says, washing the soap from his hands and turning back to her. "Care to clarify?"

"I don't know," she replies, "it's pretty unholy. It's sort of like those fucking horrible crushes that teenagers get, but I'm not really sure what that means."

Neil is pretty sure that he can relate.

"Want to tell me about it?" he asks, and he doesn't say _sometimes I think about taking off your dress_ or _you scare me more than I can say_. She kicks her heels against the counter and hums under her breath until he moves to stand in front of her, touches fingers to thin knees under her skirt, and she raises her chin towards him and parts her lips.

 

*

"She's so young," Neil says, and Tori sighs.

"She's a big girl, honey. You'll be good for her."

*

In his dreams, Amanda has white streaks in her dark hair, and she dies with a serpent wrapped around her ankles, pricks of blood on soft skin. He travels into the underworld to find her again. _I beg you, by these silent realms, to weave again the destiny of one who died too soon_. He sings, and he sings until he hears her voice somewhere close by, sings until there are hands pulling at his skin, everywhere, and he wakes up with Amanda lying next to him. Her face is turned away from him, and he runs fingers through her hair until she stirs, says something unintelligible into the pillow.

"Go back to sleep," he whispers, wrapping arms around her waist again, fingers splayed out over her stomach. "I was just checking."

*

They tell the world that they're dating, which should probably be some kind of grand romantic gesture, but nobody's particularly shocked. He makes Amanda hold his hand in public, and she pulls him into corners and kisses him with teeth, and he's having trouble meeting deadlines.

"Oh, hey," she says, lying on her stomach in his bed, her computer open in front of her,"I just got hate mail from one of your fangirls."

"Oh dear god," he murmurs.

"And by one of your fangirls, I mean one hundred. Roughly." He sits on the bed and tries to read over her shoulder, but she shuts the laptop, rolling over and pulling him on top of her. He rests hands on either side of her head, and she smirks at him. Her hair is still damp from her shower, and her face is clean, no makeup at all, eyes narrowed at him. "They're just looking out for your general welfare. Think I'm gonna corrupt you."

"Because I'm so easily corruptible."

"You're the kindly, handsome writer, beloved by all," she says, leaning up to run her lips over his jaw, bite down gently, "and I'm the tragic, mysterious girl with the shady past. I could be leading you to the dark side right now."

"I would let you," he says, seriously, and she noses against his cheek, running her hands over his back to pull him as close as she can.

*

Amanda spreads out pictures on the dining room table, from old theatre productions, from when she played a statue, face still and blank behind the paint. A different girl with every pose. He doesn’t have many pictures to show her, but she makes a comment on every one he does, laughs at the interesting hairstyles and clothing choices, at his old convention stories to go along.

(He’s introduced his kids to her; they’ve had dinner with his ex-wife. They haven’t slept apart in weeks. This is the point in any other relationship that he would be panicking, but he’s never been quite this calm, quite this poised to rush into _I love you_ and really mean it.)

“You used to actually own a hairbrush? That’s sexy.” Amanda holds up a picture when he moves to stand with his hands wrapped around the back of her chair, looking over her shoulder. He kisses the top of her head while she keeps talking, a casual: “No, really, there’s something appealing about the Clark Kent look you’ve got going on here. . .” and, when she thinks he isn’t paying attention, “but I do sort of like you exactly the way you are.”

“Thank you,” he murmurs, and he means more by it than she could ever know.


End file.
